Queer Lisboa

“Queer Lisboa is now in it’s 18th year and was Lisbon’s first ever film festival. The theme for 2014 was ‘18 years of Filth’ which is both a light-hearted reference to the ‘shocking’ connotations of queer films and also to the work of cult filmmaker John Waters whose films had a retrospective throughout the festival. The festival also included a really interesting strand – Queer Focus on Africa, which included many films rarely shown in cinemas. I saw 3 films from Senegal – all fantastic.

I saw how another LGBT festival outside of the UK works – especially interesting to see how the films are marketed and what makes the cut. There was a certain freedom to the programme – with titles included that really challenge notions of what queer cinema is an could be.
One of the titles I have programmed already and another is in discussion with the sales agent. To cut out the middle men I also spoke with 3 director’s who offered me their work to exhibit in Brighton.

I spent more time with some of the programmers from the festival who I’d met previously at BFI Flare. We spoke about their plans to expand the festival to Porto in 2015 and I of course expressed an interest in this new venture. It seems quite viable that there’ll be an opportunity here during next spring/summer.
I had a meeting with one of the main programmers for BFI Flare – an organization I have applied twice now to work for. It’s a long game trying to get into programming so any extra conversations such as this all a big help.

Being in regular, close proximity to other exhibition professionals meant that I could both network and follow up on these discussions quickly. That would not have been possible without attending the festival.”